Ginger Cake with Fruit Sauce

 

Hello!  I’m back!  Wow, I can’t believe how long I’ve been unplugged.  No one ever told me how all encompassing the end of senior year in high school is for parents!  My parents were nowhere near as busy with my graduation as Les and I were for our daughter’s! 

Between college visits, senior prom, senior dinner dance (which was prom with parents and really fun!), the last choir concert, baccalaureate mass, graduation and graduation party, we were pretty busy this spring.  My son also had a birthday week extravaganza, which included a camping trip during the same time.  Add in a database change at work, I didn’t even open my laptop for days on end.  Yeah, I know…blah, blah, blah.

I did continue to cook, and I have a couple vegan recipes to share, but I knew I needed something special to get me back to blogging.  I made this cake years ago for a barbeque Les and I hosted for our dear friends Tom and Paula.  Les was trying some baby back ribs on his new smoker, and I made a potato salad and this Ginger Cake with Fruit Sauce.  We pulled the ribs out of the smoker and served dinner.  The smell of dinner brought back memories of how my house smelled in high school.  Unfortunately, my memories weren’t from delicious smells coming from the kitchen.  No, my memories were from my mother chain smoking!

Dinner should never be reminiscent of a chain smoker’s ashtray!  The ribs were too smoky, so needless to say we dined on potato salad and this delicious Ginger Cake with Fruit Sauce.  Tom, being the sweet man he is, said the cake reminded him of a cake he had when he was younger.  A cake he remembered fondly.

I love the flavors of this cake.  Usually, ginger bread  reminds me of fall, but when paired with a peachy orange sauce, ginger cake is all about summer!

Now, I normally like to bake cakes from scratch, and I had thoughts of using a scratch cake for this, but sometimes a doctored cake mix is exactly what is needed, so I have left the recipe as I made it 20 years ago.

This is a great cake for potlucks.  It can easily be baked in a 9X13 pan and cut into squares to serve (skipping the cream cheese).  I’m thinking about adding this dessert to my 4^th of July menu.

Ginger Cake with Fruit Sauce

Adapted from Treasury of Barbeque Recipes

Printable Recipe

2 packages (14.5 ounces each) Gingerbread cake mix

1 ½ cups water

6 fresh peaches, chopped (4 cups)

4 ounces light (Neufchatel) cream cheese, softened

Fruit Sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease two 9-inch rounds pans.  In a medium bowl, mix together the water and the gingerbread mixes until well blended (about 2 minutes).  Stir in peaches.  Pour batter equally into prepared pans.  Bake in the center of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool for 15 minutes in the pans.  Remove from pans and cool on wire racks.  Once the cakes are cooled, spread on cake layer with cheese.  Place second cake layer on top of the first layer, slice and serve topped with fruit sauce.

Fruit Sauce

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 cup orange juice

¼ cup honey

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

3 fresh peaches, peeled and chopped

3 fresh nectarines, chopped

In a medium saucepan, combine cornstarch and orange juice, and then add the honey.  Bring the mixture to a boil and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until thickened, about 5 minutes.   Remove from heat, and add the butter and orange zest.  Mix until the butter has melted, and add the fruit.  Serve warm over Ginger Cake.

Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

In celebration of my 3-year blog anniversary, I am sharing a cake recipe with you.  I’m not much of a cake lover (you know, cake with thick frosting and flowers), so I haven’t spent much time perfecting my cake making techniques.  Though, while I was flipping through cake recipes for inspiration the layer cakes intrigued me.  I have to admit layer cakes have intrigued me since I saw Pollyanna eat a 3-layer mile-high slice of cake at the town fair (Do you remember that scene in the movie with Hayley Mills?).  I’m still searching for a layer cake to love like the one Pollyanna ate.  The Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes looked like a layer cake I could love, but her description of the frosting as, “…tricky to apply, requiring the patience of a craftsperson.” frankly, scared me.

The cover recipe of Southern Living’s September issue has called to me for months.  Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt cake is right up my alley.  I like more homey rustic cakes, and this cake is amazing!  I wanted to eat the praline frosting straight out of the saucepan, and if I wasn't worried about how much frosting the recipe made, I would have eaten more.  From the look of the cake in Southern Living, it had at least a double recipe of frosting.  Next time I will triple the frosting, so I can eat more out of the saucepan, and still have frosting dripping all the way down the sides of the cake.

I wanted to have a beautiful layer cake to celebrate my blog’s anniversary, and though Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake isn’t beautiful, it is a homey, moist spice cake that tastes like fall, but is perfect in January too.  I hope I’m invited to dinner somewhere soon.  I’ll bring dessert!

Apple-Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

Adapted from Southern Living

Printable Recipe
Cream Cheese Filling
1 8 ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
¼ cup butter, room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Apple Cake Batter
1 cup finely chopped pecans
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground allspice
3 large eggs lightly beaten
¾ cup canola oil
¾ cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups peeled and finely chopped Gala apples

Praline Frosting
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
¼ butter
3 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Prepare the Cream Cheese Filling:  Beat the cream cheese, butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer until blended and smooth.  Add egg, flour and vanilla, and beat just until blended. Set aside.

Prepare the Apple Cake Batter: Preheat the oven to 350F°.   Bake pecans in a shallow pan until toasted, about 8 to 10 minutes.  In a large bowl, mix together flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, baking soda, nutmeg, and allspice.  Make a well in the dry ingredients, and add the eggs, oil, applesauce, and vanilla.  Stir just until all ingredients are moistened.  Stir in the apples and pecans.

Grease and flour a 14-cup Bundt pan.  Spoon half the batter into the pan.  Make a trough in the apple cake batter, and spoon the cream cheese mixture into the trough.  Swirl the filling through the apple cake batter using a paring knife.  Spoon the remaining apple cake batter over the cream cheese filling.  Bake at 350F° for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack until cooled completely (about 2 hours).

Prepare the Frosting:  Bring ½ cup of brown sugar, ¼ cup butter and 3 Tablespoons milk to a boil in a saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk constantly.  Boil mixture of 1 minute.  Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.  Gradually whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.  Stir the mixture gently for 3 to 5 minutes, or until frosting begins to cool and thickens slightly.  Pour frosting immediately over cooled cake.